Prototype Finishing & Painting

From visual models to final production units, our skilled model makers can closely meet customer specified requirements on color and finish every time. WayKen offers a complete in house finishing and painting service. We’ll provide the suitable and specialty surface treatments solution for you.

Custom Quality Finishes - One-Stop Prototype Services

Prototype making is similar to any manufacturing process. Once a part comes off the machine—a 3D printer or traditional CNC machining, it will have a unique texture and machining marks. When the texture interferes with the application, though, it must be improved or removed from the surface of the part. That is to say, to gain an accurate appearance of your final product, the prototype must undergo a rigorous finishing process, which describes the final steps required before a product can be truly brought to life.

WayKen’s in house prototype finishing is capable of providing the best post-finish including assembling & form fitting, fastening & metal inserting, sanding & polishing, blasting & brushing, painting & printing. We also offer a wide array of specialty surface treatments, including laser etching, anodizing, electroplating, chroming, chemical finishing, powder coating, etc. To provide a fast emulated prototype as same as the final product to client, we support one-stop surface finishing operations for client’s convenience.

WayKen has an integrated post-finish system to meet your diverse needs. Over 20 years experienced and skillful technicians assure you of the color, texture or gloss of parts and achieve your expectation. Check out our prototype finishing and secondary processing options to find your solution, or contact one of our dedicated project engineers, we’ll find out the best and suitable solution for you.

A common aspect of model finishing is adding inserts or functional assemblies. For example, adding a metal threaded insert allows for more durable threads when an item requires screws or bolts in the assembly process. Typically, finishes are created in-house, but our team can also work with client supplied components to finish and assemble as needed.

At WayKen, our team will help overcome all challenges of engineering hurdles, offer solutions and achieve a finished project. We always strive for perfection in every part for every project.

Sanding & Polishing

There are many ways to remove machining marks, however, if the process is not handled properly, it can easily diminish the tolerances of a part and wear away at important details. So when a part has critical features or tolerance requirements, it’s best to turn to a professional. WayKen removes product defects such as burr, machine line and adhesive mark from the parts surface via the efficient and expert hand sanding and polishing for the custom prototype finishes.

Hand sanding requires a skilled hand and takes hours. Flatness of the part will be improved and roughness will be reduced in order to create a smooth and perfect look.

And hand polish process is used for a mirror finish on normal plastic, metal parts and clear acrylic parts, as well as vapor polishing polycarbonate to achieve a precise uniform flat surface and professional grade gloss for your prototype finish, or to enhance the optical clarity of clear parts.

Painting & Printing

Spray painting is a key working procedure for final required color and texture of your product project. WayKen invests a clean paint facility to ensure the non-contaminants and non- dust environment for painting, and strictly control extreme humidity conditions in the painting room. Our prototype painting team utilizes assorted spray guns and air brushes with HVLP / LVLP atomization technologies from SATA, IWATA and DeVilbiss. The qualified UV coatings and acrylic 1K&2K PU automotive refinishing coatings from PPG and DuPont give prototypes and parts extra water resistance and chemicals resistance, as well as a glossy, professional finish.

Color:

WayKen most commonly uses the Pantone Matching System and RAL Classic System to match custom blended paints for any color code or paint swatch. For two-color or multi-color painting, we make proper masks and use tape to keep the mask lines tight and clean. With masking, we can divide elements of your monolithic prototype into several finishes for a more complicated appearance looks like 2K and 3K molding.

Texture:

The most common method for selecting texture is to call out a Mold-Tech texture. If the prototype needs to add texture which resembles production molded plastic parts, we can paint textures for a specific Mold-Tech texture to achieve the desired look and feel. If the prototype needs to be soft in touch to resemble an over-molded handle, we can achieve it with paint, and the result is not only the same in appearance, but also real in hand feeling.

UV Coating & EMI Shielding:

For functional coatings, we can go beyond simple application to ensure the part is capable of working properly. UV coating is able to resist ultraviolet radiation and protect the underlying material to enhance the durability and wear or scratch resistance. With EMI, the coating is used to shield or contain electronic equipment from magnetic fields or interference.

Laser Etching & Printing:

WayKen is capable of performing laser etching and printing on prototypes which is great to mark up your product before it moves to the mass-production stage by experimenting and identifying the ideal positioning of your brand name logo or custom message. Laser etching is permanent and will never be washed, chipped or worn off. Full color printing is available as well as Pantone or RAL color matching. We provide screen printing for flat surface and pad printing for unusually shaped products.

Special Surface Treatments

As the prototyping industry has expanded, it is the same with materials that can be used to produce prototypes. The right finish can make a difference to the success of your prototype, model, or product before you move on to the manufacturing stage of production. WayKen works with a select number of highly expert vendors to provide specialized finishes that can often help achieve the desired look. This collaboration takes specialty finishing to a whole new level, capable of solving problems and improving your product definition.

WayKen’s prototype finishing offers a wide array selection of specialty surface treatment options from our reliable partners, such as anodizing, electroplating, chroming, chemical finishing, powder coating, etc. Whether for visual or functional requirements, we can support the real production surface treatments on both plastic and metal custom parts.